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Monday 23 Feb 2009, from the Woodend train station, I drove towards my hometown, engulfed by a wall of red and black smoke. My body sweated (screaming) turn around, go the other way. The roads were full, cars snaked towards Trentham, others heading in the opposite direction towards safety were filled with personal items; trailers with motorbikes, horse floats and water tanks.

My partner and I packed our cars with personal effects. For two hours we decided what we could let burn in a house fire should the fire front burn our town and what we wanted to pack in our cars, to save. To try and make a choice of what we would want to let go, with fires imminent and embers falling from the sky... unthinkable.

On a normal day, the birdlife in our backyard is vibrant and full of life. All the birds disappeared, not a cockatoo, sparrow, lorikeet, magpie were in cooee. The air was still, the silence deafening and the sun, blood red. The embers continued to fall and the air became smoky.

Then the wind changed direction. I headed down to the Country Fire Authority (CFA) fire station, next to the Fish and Chip shop, since I hadn't eaten I killed two birds with one stone ordered dinner and sought an update from the CFA boys standing around, awaiting their instructions. It turns out the 6 CFA trucks and about 40 crew were our own Strike force, there to protect our home town, Trentham. The Authorities were concerned our town would become another Marysville, raised to the ground within minutes.

The Nursing Home was being evacuated by an 80 seater bus and a semitrailer tanker filled with water arrived to refill the CFA trucks when they had emptied their water onto the fire. In the sky, fire spotter planes controlled the area. A helicopter flew past at one stage.

Like the beginnings from the H. G. Wells recording of War Of The Worlds, the remainder of the township (about 20% remaining) who were yet to evacuate or who were going to stay and fight, got on with their lives. Talking in the street. Talking to each other. The local Supermarket that normally closes at 8PM still had their lights ablaze and the Pub remained open. Meanwhile the electricity in Daylesford had failed by this stage.

The radio reports on 91.1FM broadcast constant reports of which way the fire was heading, talking to locals about their fire plans and obtaining live reports about new fire outbreaks. We decided to evacuate Trentham after 9:30PM, when it all became a little too much to cope with.

We locked up the house,

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